This photo of former Manville volunteer firefighter Gary Barras in Toms River appeared online on Facebook.

Written by

Sergio Bichao

@sbichao

So when superstorm Sandy all but wiped out the state’s coastline — and left flood-prone Manville relatively untouched — Barras did what most emergency responders probably would want to do: He went to the ground zero of the devastation.

Turns out that was a mistake, according to borough fire officials, who reprimanded Barras and three other volunteers for temporarily joining the ranks of the East Dover Fire Company in Toms River earlier this month.

Barras, a 39-year-old bus mechanic, was expelled from Manville’s North End Volunteer Fire Company 3 after he appeared in a Facebook photo depicting him working at the Shore community.

“Firefighters are not supposed to self-deploy when you are in a state of emergency,” Manville Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Ken Otrimski said. “We have to know where our people are at any time.”

But the punishment angered some in the community. A “Support the ‘Manville 5’ ” Facebook page was temporarily created.

“You are not supposed to turn your back on a community that’s been devastated. You are supposed to help out,” said Barras, who has nearly 200 hours of fire training and spent 16 hours of the Saturday following the Oct. 29 storm checking damaged homes for people and gas leaks in Toms River.

Manville often finds itself in need of outside help whenever powerful storms leave the borough underwater.

“Last year around the same time we had other towns helping us. We were flooded, and the National Guard helped us. One good turn deserves another,” he said.

Barras said that before he drove to Toms River, he asked his superior, Capt. Joe Barilla, for permission. Barilla said Barras could go on his own as long as he did not use any Manville fire equipment, Barras said.

Barras said he also called the fire department in Toms River, where he grew up and graduated from Toms River High School East, to see if they needed help.

“I was told (by Manville officials) I was freelancing. But we were assigned to an apparatus, and we were flowed into accountability. We were in the system properly,” Barras said. “We weren’t just showing up being a random person on a fire scene not given a specific task.”

Neither Barilla nor East Dover Fire Company Chief Robert Abrams could be reached for comment.

Manville Fire Chief Marc Pruiksma declined to discuss the incident.

“Laws were broken, and it was taken care of in-house,” he said Tuesday. “I would hope (the Courier News) would respect our privacy as a public entity.”

Emergency management officials frown upon freelancing and self-deployment, in which emergency personnel take it upon themselves to respond to a fire or disaster.

The state’s Fire Service Resource Emergency Deployment Act of 2003 gives state-appointed county fire coordinators the authority to orchestrate mutual-aid responses for large-scale disasters. Fire departments that need assistance are supposed to request it through county and state emergency coordinators.